Hi there, long time no speaky. It's been a while but I'm trying to get back into the ol' LJ vibe so it's catchup time.
( Melbourne trip and Birthday weekend )

So recently I've

• Eaten chicken's feet, on purpose.  Like quail, it's too bony and a lot of effort for not much gain.
• Predicted doom, how accurate that is remains to be seen.
• Run around madly trying to prevent, or at least prepare emergency plans should doom arrive.
• Gained a specific purpose waistcoat personally tailored for Professor von Explaino by a seemstress who creates professional movie costumery.
• Gone squee over the above, loudly and often.
• Bachelored it up while Jocelyn was away at a training course.  This involved me eating prepared meals she left me, and cleaning the house.  I think I may have forgotten how to do that properly.
• Not minded forgetting how to bachelor properly.
• Come closer to having my iPhone application actually released unbuggilly.
• Found out that it likely wasn't bugger code, rather unexpected quirks in the input that was my downfall.  Stupid downfall.
• Ninja-delivered chocolate twice.  Once the recipient wasn't there and that was easy.  The second time I delivered it into their intray while they were at their desk and wasn't noticed.
• Re-ordered my comic collection to make some room for new comics.  Anyone want my PVP collection?  I've got issue 0 up to thirty something.
• Put on weight.  Damn you, weight.
• Gotten my arse handed to me in online Left 4 Dead but had fun regardless.
• Discovered I may be getting bored with Fallout 3.  Looks like my attention span for long-reaching games has dimmed, I think the last game I actually finished was Penny Arcade's game - and that was because it was a tailored interactive and personalised* novel
• * by personalised, read the same sort of personalisation you get out of those Christmas books you can buy that have your child's name in it - only this time it also has a close approximation of your face**
• ** by close approximation, read as good as you can get from predrawn Penny-Arcade style person parts***
• *** by that, read the game kicks butt and if you don't own it you should.

This event happened after morning exercises. Connie was being shark-like, even to the point of plonking down behind my head mid sit-up and attacking it when I completed the sit-up. She ran out with me when I went to do my outside stretches - I'd barely started when a crested pigeon buzzed her and she just leapt up and snatched it out of the air. She ran off to under some bushes but I pulled her away and picked up the pigeon - it was already dead.

Cats do these things, fine. I've already found a few small lizard corpses around the place much to my disapproval. I don't want to have to lock her in a cat-run but that may be the only way to protect the local wildlife. Pigeon now, could be a lorikeet or one of the blue tongues later. Plus it would protect her from the other, nastier cats in the neighbourhood she gets chased by.

*sigh* They grow up so fast.

So, another week without Jocelyn has gone past. I've missed Jos' presence a little more than the last few weeks some days. Other days I'm living up the bachelor life while it lasts. Today I did my most rebellious act yet - I cleaned Jocelyn's room. This involved buying some storage boxes and file-o-faxes and ordering the room into findable objects. Also stripped the sheets from the spare bed in there to give them a wash - I think Jocelyn will appreciate coming back to a room she can walk around in. A lot of the mess was the result of Jos' last-two-weeks of panicked work and travel organizing. Can't blame a girl for that.

I've got rugs in my lab now, I'm not sure if I had written that up here yet. The lab is finally beginning to take shape; I'm getting a much clearer idea of what I want where. The next target is the chemistry area, I think that'll be an excellent target for a Lab Building Day. Get a bunch of different gauges (thanks Scott) of PVC pipe, paint them brass and copper, create a boiler to cover up half of a concrete column and use the pipes to cover the rest. Then it's sprucing up the Ikea desk in there to make it look period and arrange the glassware tastefully! I've got two mist-ers (thanks Nel) to put in the vodka shot-glass holders and a bunch of other glassware (thanks Vicky) that will look spectacular in shelf units. Also picked up some small dinosaur skeleton skulls from a pet store that will look good on the walls on plaques. I might have to attribute their capture to Captain Adventure, or to a shrink ray that worked perfectly on calcium.

Riverfire's on tonight, saw the dump and burn from my front balcony, looked like it was flying a bit lower this year compared to previous ones. Still as spectacular as ever. Unfortunately I was pouring myself a glass of Mozart chocolate liqueur at the time and didn't get my camera out. Oh, and the first of Jocelyn's care packets arrived - Belgian chocolates, Tintin stuff, and Jos' picture with Santa Claus from Lapland. Awesome.

Work's been... issuey this week. Won't go into it, but I'm getting a lot of projects that are very important to very influential people. Thankfully I've got very good people at work backing me up, and I'm backing them up alternately; both in my direct team and in EIS in general. Always good to work somewhere you can implicitly trust your division-mates.

Tomorrow I was hoping to get some friends over to play Arkham Horror the board game I was leant (thanks Kane) but it looks like people are doing things. Unless people are up for an afternoon/ evening game? I can get all my work-prep done early if that's the case. Pizza or a fry-up is in offering.

Anyway, *raises glass* Cheers.

Went out for my run this morning. The bear was not there. No sign of it on the ground.

I distrust you, small plush toy.

Today was a mostly good day.

Managed to have a brief Skype call with Jocelyn that made me both happy and sad at the same time. It's been about a week and a half since I saw her off at the airport. The first two days were bad, and then I started having fun being able to do my stuff whenever I wanted at home, and now I'm starting to really miss her again. Stupid cycles.

To help me de-mope I rang up Scott and Amy to see if they were up for breakfast, we all decided that fast-food breakfasts were a bad lot so we went to Woolies and grabbed (well, bought) bacon, eggs, pancake mix and bread and made breakfast for ourselves. By 12. Very lazy.

We all checked out the lab and agreed the paint and walls really change the feel of the area from a brick unusable space to an actual room. Cleaning up and moving furniture around made it even more livable-esque. Check out the lab results for yourself. A budget check has curtailed further lab-work until next pay packet, so we watched a few episodes of the Tick while I ironed my work clothes and then went back to their place with pizza for a dinner with Nel. All of us were pretty knackered so I left at 7:30 ish and came home. Tried to do a bit of coding on my current project but my well-spring of wakefullness has dried. Thinking about Jocelyn again isn't helping much so I'm probably just going to go to bed.

EDIT:
Oh, something wierd that started my day off and prompted the breakfast call - I found a bear in my fence this morning. One of those small bears with the red "I love you" hearts on its chest. Nobody has owned up to it...

Last night the gaming guys came over and we played the second of our Gaming Guardians themed games. This is the same group I played Victorian with and, if I hadn't said before, the aim of this game is to go through all the gaming systems we've bought but never played but keeping characters so we can get actual role-playing happening rather than just roll-playing. So far, it's going great.

Scott's the Season One Metaplot GM and is also currently the Episode GM, we're in Marvel Super Heroes.

( Short game synopsis )

Today, Connie woke me up from sleeping in so I let her out and did the piles of laundry, including those left-over from Jos' rapid fleeing-of-the-country. Also painted the green section of the lab wall (coat one) before getting a phone call from Scott and Nel enquiring about joining them for a Botanical Gardens mission. Seems there was a Bonsai exhibition happening. Photo mission after so long, count me in. I've got a number of photos of Bonsai and other gardens on my Flickr page. Was a good, short mission. Bonsai are neat, but far too intensive to consider getting involved in. I'll stick to my Monsteria Deliciousa back at work.

We were thinking of getting a late lunch of pizza but the local good place was shut, so we all went our own way. I did more laundry and painted the final coat of green in the lab. Walls painted! Once that's dry I can finally start working on laying out the room, putting in the shelves and cabinets and then the ever popular building-of-the-SCIENCE! And the acquiring of the science thanks to friends (thanks Vicky!)

Tonight, after another delicious meal of toasted sandwiches (I really need to have some veges tomorrow), I'm watching the Mask and sipping Apple Schnapps.

Pip pip.

Ever feel like you're the result of somebody else's badly worded Wish?

AWESOME! The little details! The big details! The entire damn thing!

I'd been hanging out for this movie since I found out about it last year, and it was everything I'd hoped. Hollywood, you have redeemed yourself and are no longer forced to sleep on the couch. Who wants to see it again Sunday?

My shirt concept has become a reality! After conversations with Garth of Comedity, he's designed and selling the following:



The link will take you to the shirts store, there's no direct link to my shirt but it's easy to find. It's in pre-order now, and if it reaches the minimum required quantity, yay for shirts!

A while ago I bought some books from Warehouse23. As a gift, they gave me an Illuminati temporary tattoo (their logo). Since I have a big history of just collecting these things and never using it, I just decided to shave the back of my hand and wear it around until it wore off.

It was fun, so I took a snapshot and posted it on DeviantArt.

I was just notified someone added the picture to their Tattoo art collection. Amusing, and yet, I'm that much tougher because of it. Hoo-ha!

Again the weekend was full of family business. Had a nice dinner with Jocelyn's family on Saturday afternoon and evening, saying hi to a relative who had flown over from Fiji for a heart operation. He seems to be fine now.

Sunday I had my Aunty from the Snowy Mountains up. She brought up books from the side of the family tree that recently discovered we existed - we're apparently the decendants of a marine in the first fleet. Admittedly he was a convict (desertion), but hey. First fleet isn't too shabby.

This week has been busy at work, but I've manage to lose 2kg over the past few weeks thanks to exercising harder and eating less. The morning walk takes less time now that I'm fit enough to power walk, so I have added in situps and pushups. I actually think I can nearly make out biceps. This is new and exciting for me.

Connie had to go to the vet this week, the poor thing had to get spayed. I know it's a responsible thing to do, but I still felt rotten. Worse still was she knew something was up - normally at the vet's she inquisitvely checks everything out. This time she was all withdrawn and sulky. Picking her up she was worse, hissing at the vet and staying tucked into her carrybox. Apparently her uteris was about triple the size it should be for her age, so the operation was very taxing. But, as soon as she was home, she was running around sharking through Jos and my legs and being very loving. If only she'd stop peeing on beds and plastic bags she'd be the perfect cat.

Note her litter box is completely changed weekly and scooped twice daily. Maybe I do just need to do that more. She did have two litter boxes but she really wasn't using one of them.

I've generally loathed the Brisbane bus-based public transport. From the creme de la crap Logan city buses for school (which drove me to ride a bike, really), to the ones that took me to uni they've been old, smelly, barely air-conditioned (very important for 'round these parts) and a general bad experience.

Today Jos needed the car and I found there was a 20 minute bus trip to uni available at last, so thought I'd try it again. I got one of the new buses. They're lovely. Comfortable, well lit, well ventilated and a smooth ride. I think I may finally be able to move to a more greener option than taxiing it whenever Jos needs the car. About time really.

Three posts in a month, glee!

This weekend was fun. Bit of food markets with Jos (with the obligatory German sausages for lunch), a lot of coding on one of my projects for Saturday afternoon and evening, then a bit of lab work and house work on Sunday. I've also finally repaired my BootCamp+VMWare doohickey at home, so now I can print to my Windows-only printer from OS X. In celebration, I redownloaded Portal and played that again. That game needs to be longer. Release expansion packs!

I'm looking forward to the Penny Arcade game, a genre right in my style with the promise of wacky hijynx. Anyone else going to get that when it comes out?

Oh, and I'm going to the WWDC. Apple World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco. I arrive the Friday beforehand, any locals want to say hi?

With the lab work on Sunday, I've got a few more panels to stick to walls, and then a bunch of painting, and then the walls are done. That means I can get a few rugs and _FINALLY_ move on to the furniture and decorating. Heaven knows I have enough stuff thank to generous friends and good finds, are people interested in a lab day of furnituring and decoration?

This is prompting me (along with the steamfashion group) to really knuckle down and decide on the Professor's appearance — so I can finally go to a high tea and feel comfortable. The homburg is a must, I think, as are googles. I'm pondering if his current white-vest-on-black-shirt is a little too modern and if I should go white-shirt-dark-vest. It also needs more science, maybe get an old vest from somewhere I can uber-pocket with science. Anyone got any good suggestions on steampulp professor inspiration sites?

My postings here have really died down since I got into Twitter. I feel less guilting posting crap when I'm limited to Twitter's word count compared to here. Ah well, I'm also not been doing much I've felt like writing up for a while, I suppose. Lessee, what's stuff-worthy?

The trip down to Coolloongatta for Jos and Amy's birthday was neat. Did some more in-the-sea swimming, bleached some pants in a highly chlorinated spa, saw Horton Hears A Who (great fun) and other such things. I could get used to extended weekends away like that, I'll have to save up some leave time to do that more often. Great company and a great time had.

Last Saturday was Dracula's for Amy's birthday party. Costumed up in my rather weak Professor von Explaino outfit and joined the group for some silliness. There are photos available to see how awesomely dressed everyone was. This weekend is Supanova, the Anime and Comic convention - the guys are trying to convince me to come along as the Prof while they all come along in their steampunk outfits. Unfortunately I'm getting a big case of the over-shadoweds, so I'm uncertain if I'll go along or not. Currently, I'm still leaning towards not.

Connie has settled in nicely now. She's a complete madcat most of the time, but recently when Jos and I have sat down to watch Heroes she's lap-catted which has been awesome. Something really comforting about a lap-cat. Except when she decides it's time to attack the hand that pets it.

I need to get more Fog Ring guns so I can take them apart to use their bits in devices downstairs. Took the guns into work today, the key-ring sized one appears dead but the larger one worked fine. I played chicken with the smoke detectors for a while, people found it amusing.

Our roleplaying game continues it slow wrap-up of loose plot-lines. We're in another pseudo-Smith arc (I like calling them Smith arcs as they're to do with a trio of magic swords that Smith has had a rather bad time with), and I've finally had a chance to use the Abigail Disabler to fantastic effect. Abigail, our mage, has become slighty... unhinged. Since the last time she tried to kill Smith and Vitess, my Kitsune has worked on a suitably Kitsune-minded Abigail counterer. When she tried it last session, Smith illusioned himself into an object-of-her-affection and then used Seduction(gift) to ensure it worked. Worked incredibly well, but unfortunately had to include her fiancee as well as he was getting violent also. Still, Smith's open minded. And disturbingly bishi. And terribly clueless about such things.

Talking with Jos, I've really decided I need to put a lot more effort into getting the lab more lab-esque before I have any more gathering days downstairs. I've been too damn lazy in not finishing the walls/ finding floor-rugs and doing anything else to actually get the lab downstairs looking anything other than a large collection of pseudo-fun stuff. That, and I need to pull the finger out and actually make a proper Professor von Explaino look. I've got the neat hat, the goggles, a decent bag (shouldn't have zips though), good boots and a nice vest with a possible overjacket. Now I need good pants, shirt, and all the trinkets/ accessories that make a man mad.

Call this a call to self-encouragement.

Yesterday was mixed. I gave Jocelyn her Valentine's Day Pressies, and she liked them a lot. The day at work was mixed, as it always is when the PVC knows who you are and comes to visit because of something you did. Thankfully, that turned out to be (a) something that was very important that it get discussed at a high level and (b) the PVC came back down later and told me not to be too concerned and that the high ups thought it was funny.

Dinner, Jos and I finally made it to try Fasta Pasta at Annerley. I had expected something a bit nicer in the food department, but oh well. Turns out I just don't like the fancy, thicker pastas in general. And I'm sure that's useful information for all concerned. I did get to take the Homburg out, so I enjoyed that.

Today I'm at home, sick. Couldn't talk this morning, throat is very scratchy and sore, I may be reduced to playing Smith in RP tonight via semaphore. Then again, that's probably in Smith's character so that's not too bad. I do have access to my Work email, so I can check in through the day to ensure things are still going OK. New Team Leader jitters.

Connie the kitten-cat's going nuts today I think she's excited having someone still here after go-to-work time so she's making the most of it. My toes disapprove.

It's time for another Lab Building day, and soon. I'm canvassing for times that friends will be most able to come and organising in advance for a change. So far the targets are turning the boarded-up-door into the Lab Multi-Portal, working on the Chemistry area and painting a boatload of MDF for walls and the Cupboard. Any ideas for sciency knick-knacks are also encouraged.

After struggling getting Vista working last night and this morning, I reactivated my Steam account. Maybe I'll be able to use it this time, as my old PC was far, far, far too ancient to do much gaming save for cool Indie titles.

While struggling through the reactivation thing, I had a sad thought. Whenever I'm in a social situation, and someone I don't know is talking to me/ getting to know if we have things in common that sort of thing, are they actually trying to be friendly or social engineering all my password hints out of me? The easiest things to remember for hints are the things important to us, after all, and who doesn't like talking about those?

Short week back at work, much viva for that. I'm finding more links to my article around the internet, this makes me happy. Even if I was confusing a fellow Colin Morris when our name was popping up all over the place.

Good game on Friday night, and then Jocelyn stole me away to Kate and Alek's place for a party; as my Indian Doppleganger Colin was there. This was a Colin that Kate worked with, and claimed was my twin. We hit it off fairly well, we did seem to share veins of humour, and I drank apple schnapps so all was right in the world.

Saturday, woke up very late and painted the lab. Booya.

Sunday, visited Nan and my parents before coming back and putting on the second coat of paint. Now the lab walls are finally painted so we can start moving furniture to where they're supposed to be and work on fixing things to the walls and putting together science-y things. Should keep me in trouble for a while.

The new Mac is growing on me, slowly. I have the old HD in a cage and VMWare runs it tolerably, but there looks to be no games playing until I buy Vista and bootcamp it as the Mac refuses to boot from the drive. Very vexing, but no matter. The fact I can't use my upgrade versions of Windows to install to bootcamp is frustrating. Still, I'm sure everyone's done what they can.

Very tired now. On Kate's suggestion, via Jocelyn, I've downloaded BookSmart - a book making program that interfaces with iPhoto - to put together a photo book of Jocelyn and my trip overseas. If this works out, we'll scan in all our wedding photos and do the same there. I'd like to have a wedding book in the library. It'd be nice to just flick through.

Oh, and I finally found the poem about the Triantiwontigongalope that encouraged my Nan and I to play silly finger-puppter-creature-things. Yay!

Another weekend come and gone far too fast. So what did it encompass?

( When did I start becoming more verbose with my typitude? Darn you forum RPers who make me reconsider my writing structure! )

A thought struck me this morning. Two beings who you never see at the same place at the same time, yet are remarkably similar. On getting into work a quick Google search revealed an expert who confirmed my theory.

( World Spoilers )